The use of combination bed extensions/ramps is not new and considered to be well known in the art. However, in most contemporary systems (such as the ones described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,616,208, “Truck bed extension,” and U.S. Pat. No. 6,227,593, “Truck bed extender/ramp,” issued Sep. 9, 2003, to Bauer, and May 8, 2001, to De Valcourt, respectively), the bed extension is achieved by extending the tailgate horizontally outward from the truck bed and folding up a pair of ramps, which are adapted to fold up into an enclosure, to fit on top of the extended tailgate, while the ramp is achieved by attaching one end of each of the two ramps, in the unfolded position, to the edge of the horizontally extended tailgate that is farthest from the truck and resting the other of each ramp on the ground.
There are many problems associated with these systems:    1. When the system is functioning as a ramp, the tailgate of the truck extends horizontally; therefore, the inclination of the ramp is restricted to the horizontal distance between the tailgate-ramp contact point and the ground-ramp contact point.    2. The extended bed-to-ramp and ramp-to-extended bed conversions are not effortless: they require a considerable amount of effort and the use of various attachment means (such as tongues, straps, etc.)    3. The size of the extension of the truck bed is limited to the size of the tailgate of the truck on which the system is being used.    4. Different-size foldable ramps have to be used with different sizes of tailgates: one should marry the right size of foldable ramps to the right size of tailgate.    5. The ramp is a dual ramp, which limits the type of wheeled vehicles that can be loaded onto the truck. For example, these systems cannot be used to load a tricycle onto the truck.
The truck bed extension/ramp structure of the present invention provides a solution to these problems